This is a story by Gaius Tacitus.
Clutching the map he had been sent by email, Ben H alighted from the bus at the
University of Queensland campus, right behind his classmate Angela D. They had
had an early start that morning, catching the plane together from Melbourne to
Brisbane, and Ben felt his stomach tightening as they completed the last stage
of their journey towards their 2 and 2.30 pm interviews. Angela though seemed
calm and relaxed, getting her bearings in the spring sunshine, and deferring to
Ben's assumed male map-reading skills.
"Where now, Ben?" she asked sweetly.
Ben rotated the map, frowning slightly, then pointed to a building of mellow
sandstone beyond an immaculate lawn.
"That looks like it", he said.
The two high school students had packed lunches and an hour to spare. They found
a bench, then sat down to eat and to test each other with some last-minute
revision.
Angela was the brightest in their school year, and Ben was a close second. But
each knew they faced intense competition getting onto the degree course for
which they had both applied.
Queensland University's Department of CMNF Studies was the first of its kind in
the country, having been formed only two years previously under the brilliant
and still youthful Professor Penny S. This would be the first year for
undergraduate enrolment now that the syllabus for the BA in CMNF Studies had
finally been approved by the university senate. It had been a battle to get the
department set up in the first place. However, an enlightened administrator had
given the go-ahead, not uninfluenced by the million dollar endowment that an
anonymous donor had offered to fund Penny's chair. This philanthropist had
become acquainted with her pioneering internet papers on the theory and practice
of CMNF and had felt that the subject merited research at university level. One
of the conditions of the grant had been that the CMNF department should practise
what it preached, with females always naked in the department's dedicated
corridor, and males always fully clothed. Professor Penny already had a
departmental deputy chair, Dr Harvey T, some graduate students, plus a
postboy-cum-general-factotum and two secretaries. But now she looked forward to
the coming academic year when her lecture theatre and seminar rooms would begin
to hum with eager young minds soaking up her CMNF taught course.
The hour approached. Ben and Angela entered the social sciences faculty and
followed the arrows to the Department of CMNF Studies. Displaying the naturally
greater maturity of the female adolescent, Angela appeared outwardly composed
but inside she was experiencing a turmoil of emotion. Ben only had the strain of
the interview to feel nervous about. She shared that strain, but, being a
female, had even more expected of her, as she and Ben both knew. The interview
pack had explained in detail that she would be required to remain naked during
the interview and throughout her time in the department. It would not have been
quite so bad, had Ben not also passed the preliminary telephone interview and
qualified to be here with her. Angela's classmate had never seen her in anything
less than her sports kit. Now he was about to see her in all her naked glory.
While this thought added to her own nerves, for Ben it was a kind of solace -
although not without some anxiety-inducing features of its own. Yet while Ben's
clothes would help him conceal his reactions to the situation he was about to
experience, Angela's every flush, goosebump, and trembling muscle would be
exposed to his and everyone's public scrutiny, not to mention her moles, the
precise colour and curl of her pubic hair, the form of her belly-button and the
size and shape of her nipples. Angela knew that she was about to reveal to Ben
everything she had, and he would never look at her in the same way again.
The double doors to the CMNF department were of wood and frosted glass, and
locked by an access control system - a condition imposed by the university. A
notice read "Department of CMNF Studies. Attention! Female nudity is obligatory
beyond this point. Please ring bell for access. First-time visitors should
consult the information sheet in the perspex holder before attempting to enter.
Your co-operation is appreciated. Non-compliance with these rules is a
university-level offence and may lead to expulsion. By order of the Dean." Ben
and Angela checked the information sheet, but it was only what they had already
been sent. Most of the sheet was a list of dos and donts for women, explaining
where they should undress, what they could keep on (basically nothing except for
jewellery and hair accessories), and miscellaneous other items of practical and
safety importance to naked females, down to issues of hygiene. At the bottom of
the sheet, a brief paragraph headed "Males" cautioned that men were expected to
conduct themselves exactly as they would elsewhere and above all to treat their
naked female colleagues with consideration and respect. It was emphasised that
the women's nakedness did not make them available to the men in other ways.
Angela steeled herself, since Ben was hesitating, and rang the bell. A pleasant
voice over the intercom asked them to wait a moment, and within a short space of
time the door clicked and opened. Although expected, it was nonetheless a shock
to see one of the departmental secretaries standing there, stark naked. She was
a sporty-looking woman of around thirty, with blue-rimmed spectacles and short
auburn hair that curled just short of her shoulders. Her firm breasts had that
fat banana-shape with nipples pointing slightly up. Ben was familiar with the
female form, of course, thanks to late nights on his computer when his parents
imagined he was working on an urgent class assignment. But this was something
different. Unlike the evenly-toned models he saw on the screen, this woman's
flesh, seen close up, was mottled and imperfect. There were veins visible near
the tips of her breasts, to which Ben's eyes had slumped unbidden as if lead
weights were suddenly placed upon them. The aureoles had ragged edges and were
of different shapes. This was, in short, a real naked woman, and a hundred times
more alluring than any digital image. Ben struggled to raise his eyes to the
woman's face as he followed Angela into the hallway beyond.
"You must be Angela, and...Ben?" inquired the secretary. "Did you have a good
flight?"
The woman introduced herself as Gillian, then interrupted any further
pleasantries by indicating the female changing room. Ben's heart was pounding as
he continued to wait in the hallway with the naked Gillian while Angela went to
disrobe. He and his female classmate had made a slightly odd couple on the
aeroplane. He was dressed in his smartest school uniform, with shiny black
shoes, pressed trousers, striped tie and coloured crest on his jacket pocket.
Angela was casual, in trainers, jeans and faded pink t-shirt. There had been no
point in dressing up, as she wouldn't be wearing anything anyway. And while
Angela was divesting herself of her clothes, Ben felt uncomfortably aware of his
own, fearing that he might overheat as he tried to overcome his natural shyness
and make small talk with this woman, a good dozen years older than he, who was
standing exposed beside him. Sun streaming in through the windows at the far end
of the corridor cast bright patches on her body and sparkled off the tiny hairs
of her naked flesh. Behind her, a placard on the wall showed the departmental
who's who, with photographs of Professor Penny and her staff. Though only the
upper parts of their bodies were visible, the women were nude, while the four
men's portraits showed an array of ties, jumpers and open-necked shirts.
The door to the female changing room opened, a tad hesitantly Ben thought, and
suddenly Angela was there. His eyes ran swiftly over her unclad body then
snapped back to her face. He smiled but his throat was dry. Angela caught his
gaze briefly, then looked down. She had prepared herself for this moment,
resolving to look Ben steadily in the eye, but all of a sudden she felt utterly
feminine and bashful - a sensation that prevented her from staring back as
assertively as she normally would. And there was something else. By averting her
eyes from him, Angela gave Ben more freedom to study her nakedness. Now that her
body was revealed to him, she found, to her surprise, that she wanted him to
enjoy it.
Gillian bade the two school students to follow her into a room further up the
hallway. She went ahead, her nicely-rounded buttocks flexing rhythmically as she
strode in front of them. Angela and Ben followed, on the left the naked girl,
her nipples stiffening, her bare feet leaving transient misty outlines on the
shiny linoleum floor, on the right, the fully clothed boy, wearing the uniform
Angela saw him in every day, one hand tucked into a trouser pocket, fingering
some small change to calm his nerves.
The room they were shown into was a kind of common room. The carpet had a
welcome softness to Angela's bare soles, though Ben's shod feet hardly noticed
the change in surface. They were invited to help themselves to squash or tea and
coffee, which had been put ready on a table, then Gillian left them alone.
Angela and Ben looked at each other. Ben cracked a smile that just stopped short
of a laugh. Angela flashed her own smile back, opening her eyes wide and
momentarily putting on a somewhat goofy expression. They needed a displacement
activity and busied themselves with the drinks. Neither spoke, for the only
things that might have been appropriately said at that moment were so obvious
there was no need to utter them out loud - "so how do you like having me nude in
front of you, Ben?", "very much, Angela, very much indeed". Though Angela had no
romantic interest in Ben, she considered him a friend. They had gotten to know
each other through being on the school quiz team, of which Angela was captain
and Ben her right-hand man. As she stood there in that strange room, naked,
vulnerable, definitely more than a little humiliated, she felt a new closeness
to her clothed male schoolmate, as if he were almost a brother. While she
grappled with her feelings of giddy exposure, his school-uniformed normality was
her rock, a firm foundation of male solidity from which her free, volatile
feminine spirit could soar upwards, embarrassed yes, but also revelling in her
own nude beauty.
The door opened, and a male head poked round it. It was Dr Harvey, Professor
Penny's deputy.
"Angela D?" he asked.
Angela's interview was first, and she followed Dr Harvey out of the room.
Now that she had gone, leaving him alone with his thoughts, Ben felt, if
anything, even more excited. The image of his naked friend, classmate, and head
girl filled his head. He studied the parts of her anatomy in his mind's eye,
enjoying the thought of his one-sided right to view her charms, while he himself
retained his dignity and privacy. And though she was gone, he knew she would
have to come back, and he would be able to see her all over again.
Ten minutes or so later, before Angela returned, the door opened again. It was
Gillian the secretary, with a girl of his own age. She was, of course, naked
from head to toe. She had long brown hair and small breasts, skinny without
being unhealthy.
"Here for interview?" Ben asked, when Gillian had left again, surprising himself
with his boldness. His shyness seemed to be abating now that girls were
appearing naked in front of him.
The new arrival nodded and smiled sheepishly. She hardly knew what to do with
herself. Every instinct was screaming for her to put her hands over her naked
breasts and sex, to hide herself from this fellow-teenager in his school
uniform, but she had to force herself to relax and stand there with her body on
display. She knew that, despite his cool demeanour, he would be scrutinising her
closely, and enjoying what he saw.
"I'm on next," Ben said. The girl began to open up a bit, and they chatted about
where they were from and why they had chosen this university and course. Ben
relished the thought that he had never seen his new acquaintance in any state
other than naked, and she had never known anything other than to be naked in
front of him while he remained fully clothed. "I have to get onto this course",
he thought to himself, and was already planning how, if he were rejected, he
would beg, plead, and, without a doubt, study his socks off to apply again the
following year.
Just before the time for Ben's interview, another girl arrived. She had dirty
blonde locks done up in a loose bun, steel-rimmed glasses, full breasts with
light pink nipples, and a surprisingly full bush of pubic hair. She seemed like
a serious egghead. As the two naked girls and the clothed boy looked at each
other with a combination of empathy and rivalry, Ben felt himself intimidated by
these assured combinations of brains and naked beauty with whom he was competing
for a place on the CMNF programme.
Angela returned to the waiting room and Ben was called in. He just had time to
cast a conspiratorial glance at his schoolfriend and mouth "how did it go?" to
which she rolled her eyes and smiled. His sleeve brushed against her bare breast
as he passed her in the doorway.
A few steps across the hall and Ben was in Professor Penny's office. Professor
Penny sat at an elegant oak table. There was no cloth on it, and the year 12
high school student could see directly through to the equally unclothed
professor's womanly lap, hips and thighs. Above the table, he had a fine view of
her breasts. Professor Penny smiled and bade him sit down opposite. It reassured
him to think that his trousered behind was sitting where Angela's naked
posterior had been only a minute or two previously. On one side of the nude
Professor Penny was Dr Harvey, in his best interviewing suit and tie. On the
other was a heavily tanned kind of beach girl, with braided hair and a silver
piercing through one side of her nose, otherwise as innocent of any covering as
the day she was born. This bareskinned vision was introduced as Kathy, a
postdoctoral researcher in the CMNF department. She seemed to glower at the boy
who sat before her. She was a free spirit, and had no immediate affinity for the
strait-laced young man in his clean white shirt and sober school uniform. Ben
writhed in the chair, which was still warm from Angela's naked form.
Professor Penny shuffled some papers and tapped them on the table, and the
interview began. For Ben, it passed in a dream. The questions washed over him
and somehow he found answers, all the while Professor Penny's bare breasts
jiggled in front of his eyes, occasionally replaced, as he turned to answer one
or the other, by Dr Kathy's equally lovely chest or Dr Harvey's rather gaudy
tie.
Back in the waiting room, Ben found Angela and the others had been joined by a
male student. The newcomer, in a black school uniform with red trimmings,
surrounded by the three naked girls, was abnormally short and somewhat stocky.
He had a full head of blond hair and a retrousse nose. He looked like a prig,
and as soon became clear, behaved like one. Evidently to compensate for his lack
of stature, he had a superiority complex the size of a minor African country. He
regaled his fellow-candidates with stories of his intelligence and popularity
back at his high school in Tasmania. He also went on and on about Professor
Penny's work, which he seemed to know inside out. His conversation was peppered
with terms like 'subaltern male' and the professor's Latin motto, 'Nuda validus
vir victum. Hic habitat felicitas.' It unnerved Ben, who found himself wishing
he had spent more of those late nights on CMNF theory and less on CMNF practical
research. This diminutive scholar seemed mature beyond his years, albeit
insufferable. His name, he said, was Jonty. Swot-girl turned out to be called
Helen, and Miss Skinny was Sandra.
The five candidates were expected to wait till the end of the afternoon, when
they would be given a tour of the department. During the wait and the enforced
enjoyment of each other's company, a certain camaraderie developed. At one
point, as Ben noticed with a twinge of...something, Angela was sitting on the
arm of Jonty's wing-chair, stretching her arm across the back of the seat, her
exposed breasts wobbling as she laughed at one of his lame jokes. She seemed
almost tender towards him, nestling the diminutive but self-opinionated youth,
with his black and red uniform, in the crook of her bare body, his blond mop
inches away from her shaven armpit. Ben stood close to Helen, whose intensely
intelligent conversation was passing mostly over his head. He pretended to stare
at the floor in serious contemplation of the complex argument she was making,
while in reality stealing glances at her soft brown nipples when they swayed
close to his jacket as she jabbed her finger in emphasis of some point.
The last interview was Jonty's, and during that half hour Ben slumped in an
armchair, basking in the presence of naked female flesh wherever he looked
around him. He gazed at Angela's delicious derriere as she looked out the window
towards the rest of the campus. He compared the breasts of Helen and Sandra as
they sat side-by-side on the sofa, chatting and giggling. Towards the end,
Gillian the secretary came in, to check how everyone was getting on. From his
seated vantage point, Ben had an excellent view of the mature woman's gingery
pubes and he studied the way they curled between her thighs, partially revealing
the outline of her nether-lips.
Finally, they were rejoined not only by Jonty but by Professor Penny and Drs
Harvey and Kathy. Professor Penny, standing there stark-naked, addressed the
audience of one clothed man, two naked women, two clothed boys and three naked
girls. She thanked the candidates for coming and made some kind remarks about
what a hard choice the candidates had given her and her colleagues. She then
proceeded to guide the candidates round the department, showing the computing
facilities, the small departmental library, the teaching rooms, and the
administrative area, where the students would have their pigeonholes and leave
coursework for marking. There Penny noticed Adam, the post-boy, a spotty youth
of about 19, dressed in ill-fitting trousers and shirt made from artificial
fibres.
"Ah Adam, can you run over to the humanities building, and see if they have done
that photocopying for me? There's a good chap." She stood there nude, putting
her hand on her hip.
"Yes, professor. I'll go right away." replied the lad of unprepossessing
appearance, then buzzed himself through and out of the department doors.
Jonty monopolised Professor Penny as they walked around. It was funny to see the
Lilliputian youth in his schoolboy uniform walking next to the naked woman, ten
years his senior. Penny hardly got a word in edgewise as Jonty pontificated on
CMNF issues, evidently forgetting he was talking to the world's expert. Ben
looked on with a sneaky contempt, thinking that Jonty's attempts to impress the
professor would backfire and he would put her off by being so full of himself.
In fact, the female professor listened with an amused tolerance, sometimes
bending forward to hear what the cocky young man was saying, her bare breasts
hovering near to his ear. His manner might be unfortunate, she thought, but he
is keen, and mostly knows what he is talking about. Penny had no problem with
pontification, having herself done a fair bit of it in her time. Towards the end
of the tour she even put her hand on Jonty's shoulder laughing fondly at one of
his remarks. Jonty was so alarmed at the sudden proximity of her naked body that
he stepped back awkwardly, planting his size 3 shoe on Professor Penny's bare
foot. For once, he was embarrassed by his crassness, but she made him feel at
ease by ruffling his hair.
And so the tour was at an end. The candidates all shook hands with the wearless
professor and were then handed over to Gillian. Ben and Jonty waited with her in
the hallway while the female candidates went to get dressed. Jonty was holding
forth as usual, engaging Gillian in some discussion about the departmental
organigram. This time Ben was grateful as it gave him ample time to study again
the veins on the mature woman's chest while she was distracted by whatever Jonty
was saying. The girls reappeared and now it almost seemed shocking that they
were wearing clothes. Indeed, Ben had never seen Helen and Sandra with their
clothes on before and could truthfully have said he hardly recognised them. For
the girls' parts, they were relieved to get their clothes back. But they also
felt a twinge of disappointment. For the last few hours, their bodies had felt
electrically charged, like magnets for male eyes, and mixed with the
embarrassment was a kind of pride in their exposure. They had been to a hard
place the boys could never know, and yet conducted themselves creditably. They
had also confronted, to the greatest extent yet in their young lives, that their
naked womanly form was like a naked flame - sinuous, beautiful, fascinating and
stunningly potent. What a shame to cover it up.
* * *
Epilogue. Two weeks later, the phone call came through to Angela and Ben's
school. Having interviewed all the candidates for the twenty places on offer,
Professor Penny and her team had now made their selection. Angela was in, and so
was Ben. What is more, Angela was rated as the top candidate and had been
awarded an exhibition(*). Ben, it seemed, scraped through by the skin of his
teeth. Unfortunately, they heard that the abrasive Jonty would also be joining
them that September as they embarked, bright-eyed, on their CMNF degree.
(*) Sorry, I couldn't resist this pun.
